Page 24 of The Beta Test

55378: Long distance seems like a losing battle, not that I would know from personal experience. Was there a discussion before they left about how you two would communicate?

Yes! I knew good ol’ 55378 would understand.

80085 [Me]: Absolutely. We had a schedule for phone calls and the expectation that we should check in via text daily.

55378: And have you both kept to the agreement?

As much as I want to cover for Braden and say we have been… I can’t.

80085 [Me]: Well, I have…

55378: And SO hasn’t?

80085 [Me]: No.

55378: It sounds like SO is violating the agreement and not acting in good faith. The call you heard is probably the tip of the iceberg. I’m sorry. Your feelings are valid IMO.

Those are the words I expected, and somehow they still knock the air out of my lungs. How many times will Braden hurt me? How much more can I take? It all feels so unfair and so wrong that I want to crawl out of my skin and find a new reality to live in—one in which Braden adores me the way he’s supposed to. The way he promised me.

When Braden left for college, I was filled with optimistic hope that we would beat the odds, survive the distance, and stay together forever. Now I’m left questioning if I’d hallucinated our agreement altogether. He did agree to it, didn’t he? Did I force it on him? Why wouldn’t he just tell me if he wanted to break up?

Tears blur my vision but I blink them back. Through the blur I see a notification—a couple messages from Mr. Pi. But I can’t bring myself to check them. I toss my tablet on my bed and head to Hunter’s room to see if he’s dressed and ready to go trick-or-treating. As usual lately, our mother is working, and I’m the one on parental duty with our dad still in Australia. He’s due to come back for a week around Thanksgiving, and I'm both excited and dreading his visit. I’ll be glad to see him. I love my dad. But I’m worried about how things will go between him and Mom—there’s definitely tension there.

“Hey, Bud, you ready?” I call as I knock on Hunter’s bedroom door. “It’s almost time to go plunder the neighborhood for our chocolatey bounty.”

The door opens and Hunter appears dressed as a pirate, a pumpkin-shaped bucket in hand, clearly more than ready to fill it to the brim with candy.

“Ready!” He grins, then realizes he isn’t in character and his face contorts into an adorable, lopsided grimace. “I mean, aye, matey!”

I smile. “Alright, let’s go.”

As we make our way downstairs to the front door, the doorbell chimes. I grab a bowl of candy and get ready to greet trick-or-treaters, but when the door opens I’m surprised to find Jake standing there instead. Except he doesn’t look like Jake. His outfit is some kind of drapey concoction with multiple layers in brown and linen. The brown boots on his feet are nearly knee high—certainly not something a teenage guy would normally wear. Then I see the telltale sign: a lightsaber at his hip.

“Jake!” Hunter exclaims happily at the same time I say, “A Jedi, really?”

Both Jake and Hunter look at me, incredulous.

“He’s not a Jedi, Avery,” Hunter mansplains to me in his little boy voice, “he’s a Padawan. Like a Jedi-in-training. See? Look at his braid.” They fist bump, grinning.

A quick glance at Jake’s hair reveals a long, thin braid behind one ear that must be a clip-on. “Maybe Jake just wanted a braid of his own for once.”

Hunter rolls his eyes. “It’s a real thing. Padawans have braids. They cut them when they become Jedi Knights.”

I’m about to ask Jake how he managed to turn my brother into his Star Wars-obsessed protégé despite barely spending time here, but then I realize that’s not the most pertinent question. “What are you doing here, Jake?”

“We decided we were going to trick-or-treat together, remember? Aves, we talked about this yesterday,” he replies.

My forehead wrinkles in confusion. “I mean, you mentioned it, but I figured you’d be at the Halloween party.”

“Who wants to go to a lame Halloween party when I can go trick-or-treating with a pirate and—“ Jake pauses as his eyes move over my figure, “a… nun?”

I place a hand on one hip and cock an eyebrow. “Does this look like a nun habit to you?”

Jake purses his lips, and glances at Hunter with an exaggeratedly confused expression. Hunter eats it up and starts giggling at the idea that my costume is too confusing to guess. It seems a tad unfair, given how not obvious Jake’s costume is, in my opinion.

Jake snaps his fingers. “A governess! You love those historical type movies.”

“No.”